Paper presented at the Economic History Society Annual Conference, Wolverhampton,
Telford Campus. 27–29 March 2015
Wealth inequality in Sweden 1750–19001
Erik Bengtsson, Anna Missiaia, Mats Olsson and Patrick Svensson
Department of Economic History, Lund University
Preliminary results, please do not quote!
1. Introduction
The last fifteen years or so have seen an important upswing in the research interest in early
modern wealth inequality. Previous economic inequality research has mainly built on data
from the mid-19th century on and hypothesized patterns in the data (a 19th century increase in
inequality) that could not be proven or disproven with the data used. As early as the mid1990s (van Zanden 1995), the interest in earlier economic inequality, and especially wealth
inequality, has grown. Wealth inequality is, in an agrarian economy, a better measure of
inequality than the inequality of incomes. This is because a large part of the economic activity
is not mediated by the market and the income of most economic activity cannot be measured.
Instead, the ownership of wealth, and especially land, is the most important indicator of
economic inequality in the preindustrial society (cf. Alfani 2010: 514).
This paper provides new estimates of wealth distribution in Sweden from 1750
to 1900. The previous literature on Swedish wealth inequality before 1900 comprises only of
a problematic point estimate of 1800 (Soltow 1985) and some years in the 1870s and 1890s
(Roine and Waldenström 2009); our data thus makes it possible to test many hypotheses and
ideas about Swedish wealth inequality in the early modern and early industrial periods. One of
these is Piketty’s (2014) claim that Sweden before the 1910s was not at all more equal than
other capitalist countries. This claim, given that Sweden was a late industrializer, contrasts
with the common statement that more economically advanced countries were more unequal
(e.g. van Zanden 1995). Moreover, this study aims at extending Lindert’s (1986) analysis of
rural vs. urban inequality and inequality by social groups to Sweden. Finally, we are testing
the widespread view in Swedish economic history of a relatively equal peasant-dominated
rural society.
This paper has been written within the projects ”Growth and inequality before the industrial revolution, Scania
1650 to 1850” financed by the Swedish Research Council, ”Wages, economic performance and inequality.
Scandinavia in the ‘Little Divergence’ in Europe”, financed by Jan Wallanders, Tom Hedelius stiftelse and Tore
Browaldhs Stiftelse, and “Two very different ways? Agrarian reforms, markets and agricultural growth in
Germany and Sweden 1750–1880”, financed by the Swedish Research Council.
1
1
2. Literature and hypotheses
The international literature on early modern wealth inequality
Historical wealth inequality has raised great interest in recent years. For the United States,
Lindert and Williamson (1980) provide a synthesis of the studies made up to the late 1970s.
Their main result is that wealth inequality went through four phases from the mid-17th
century to the 1950. First, a period without much change from the mid-17th century to 1770.
The second phase is from the 1770s to the 1860s and sees a rapid increase of inequality.2
Phase three is from 1870 to 1910 with high and stable inequality. The fourth phase is one of
decreasing inequality from the First World War to 1950. Lindert and Williamson claim that
this is completely consistent with the Kuznets curve: first increasing inequality with
industrialization and economic modernization, then decreasing inequality.
Lindert (1986) estimates wealth inequality for England and Wales for 1670,
1700, 1740, 1810, 1857 and 1875. He finds that inequality in ownership was high in the
Victorian age, as social commentators pointed out in that period, but had been so also for the
two hundred preceding years, although its composition had changed substantially. At the
beginning of the period, land was the most important form of wealth, and was very unequally
held. When land gradually became less important, this had an equalizing effect. But this effect
was counteracted by a growing inequality in the ownership of non-land capital. The
compositional change at the centre of Lindert’s analysis highlights how studies of wealth
inequality should not reduce its topic to be only top shares or Ginis, but also investigate the
composition of inequality and how it changes over time. Lindert also shows an interest in
social groups – nobility, merchants, yeomen, peasants and so on – that inspires. However he
also presents estimates of top wealth shares. The share of the top decile is, according to
Lindert, rather trendless from 1670 to 1875, varying between 81 and 86 per cent. The top
percentile share is more volatile, first decreasing from 49 per cent in 1670 to 39 in 1700 and
44 in 1740, then increasing dramatically to 55 per cent in 1810 and 61 per cent in 1875
(Lindert 1986: table 4). However, this increase seems to have been the result of polarization
among the rich, as the top 5 per cent share actually did not bulge.
Van Zanden (1995) in a very influential paper gave new impetus to the literature
and brought it, so to say, to the European continent. Van Zanden compiled the scattered
findings from a large number of local studies of wealth inequality in late mediaeval and early
modern Western Europe and claimed that the literature needed a uniting analytical
framework. The framework he proposed was the Kuznets Curve, now extended from its
earlier 19th–20th century shape to a “Super Kuznets Curve” for the early modern period, where
the growth period of the 16th century starts increasing inequality which goes on until the 19th
century, and the decrease starting in the early 20th century. For example Augsburg, for which
Shanahan and Correll (2000) provide a critical study of Williamson and Lindert’s synthesis and find that they
slightly overestimate the increase in inequality from 1770 to 1870. However this does not change the major
picture.
2
2
there is unusually good data, in the 16th century shows the expected combination of economic
growth and increasing inequality that one would expect in the early phase of a Kuznets Curve.
Van Zanden also provides new evidence that the Super Kuznets Curve fits the case of
Holland.
The later European literature has mainly continued to build on van Zanden’s
1995 paper. Alfani (2010), studying Ivrea, a city in northern Italy, also finds very high
preindustrial urban inequality. Reis et al (2011) have data for Portugal in 1550, 1700 and 1770
and do not find increasing inequality from 1550 to 1770 but explain this with Portugal’s
relative economic stagnation – i.e., the country is the opposite of the typical Kuznets Curve
country. Ergene et al (2013) however find the opposite for 18th century Ottoman Empire:
economic stagnation and declining inequality. Fernandez and Santiago-Caballero (2013)
investigate the countryside around Madrid from 1500 to 1840 and find increasing inequality.
Cankabal and Filiztekin (2013) for four cities in Anatolia from 1500 to 1840 find the expected
positive correlation between economic development and inequality. Turner (2010) studies
wealth inequality in Northern Ireland from 1858 to 2001 and find no change in inequality
before the 1890s when inequality starts decreasing. The decrease after the 1890s is not
surprising but the typical right hand side of the Kuznets Curve (albeit starting earlier than
most), but it is more surprising that inequality did not increase during the industrialization
years from 1858 to the 1890s. Turner says that one possible explanation is that Northern
Ireland is “a more agrarian and landlord-dominated economy than England and Wales, and
was less industrialized at this stage in its economic development” (p. 642).
Thus, the current literature on early modern wealth inequality in Europe is very
much focused, almost single-mindedly so, on the (Super) Kuznets Curve and the relationship
between economic development and inequality. This is certainly one connection that we will
explore in our analysis, but as we will see from the Swedish literature, there are also more
nuanced and fine-grained hypotheses to test.
The Swedish literature
There are two earlier direct studies of Swedish wealth inequality before 1900. Soltow (1985)
uses the 1805 census where parish priests were obliged to report the socioeconomic status of
their parishioners. Those who had more than 500 riksdaler above their yearly expenses were
to be classified as rich, those who had less as rather rich, those who did not get by without
hardship were classified as poor, and those who depended on gifts and alms to survive were
classified as destitute. Soltow uses the social distribution into the four groups and combines
this with wealth data from the 1800 wealth tax, which lists each owner of property and wealth
that year. Soltow has a sample of 6309 persons and estimates a gini coefficient in 1800 of
0.73.3
3
Söderberg (1987: 64) points out that Stockholm is missing in the data that Soltow uses. This should mean that
Soltow underestimates inequality.
3
Roine and Waldenström (2009) use estate tax data for 1873 to 1877 and 1906 to
1908 to extend the previous wealth distribution series which Spånt (1979) created for the
period 1920 to the 1970s.4 According to Roine and Waldenström’s estimates, the top decile
held about 85 to 90 percent of total wealth in the 1870s and this did not change to 1906–08.
(In this series there is only real change, with a steep decrease of inequality, after 1930.) The
top percentile holds between 53 and 60 percent of total wealth in 1873–77 and 58 to 61
percent in 1906–08; again the picture is one of high and stable inequality. These two studies
provide the data also for the reporting on Swedish wealth inequality in Piketty’s (2014: 344f)
recent book. Piketty’s conclusion from these data in a comparative perspective is that
“Sweden was not the structurally egalitarian country that we sometimes imagine” (p. 344);
wealth is not equalized until after World War I.
Of course there is also a wider literature which is relevant to the topic of
Swedish wealth inequality, even though it does not present direct estimates of wealth
inequality. Soltow (1989) uses the same census classification in four social groups – rich,
moderately rich, poor and destitute – as in his 1985 wealth inequality paper from the censuses
from 1805 to 1855 to analyze the proportion of households in the different groups. He finds
that both among rural and urban households, the share of the poor or destitute decreased and
the share of rich or moderately riche increased. He interprets this as decreased inequality (p.
51) He estimates the Gini coefficient of land ownership to be 0.70 in 1805, 0.67 in 1845, 0.64
in 1879 and 0.58 in 1921, and the top decile share in same years as 60, 58, 54 and 48 per cent
respectively, i.e. a continuous decrease of inequality. According to Soltow, “general
inequality decreased at least a little; inequality above the median income decreased;
destitution decreased. The outstanding aspect of the initial stages of the industrial revolution
in Sweden is the fact that poverty did not increase. In fact, it decreased.” (p. 62) However, as
we have noted his data only concerns the ownership of land, and of course during
industrialization land decreased in importance as a source of wealth, as produced capital
became more important. As we will see, we will have reason to revise Soltow’s picture of
decreased inequality.
There are several other studies of specifically rural social differentiation during
our period. Winberg (1975: 17) in a seminal study stresses that from 1750 to 1850 population
growth is rapid in Sweden, and especially rapid is the growth of proletarians. The share of
proletarian and semi-proletarian groups among rural households increases from one fifth in
1751 to half in 1850. Proletarianization is not necessarily the same thing as pauperization, but
it is still reasonable to expect some increased wealth inequality to this social differentiation.
Morell (1980) compiles the findings of several local studies of six parishes in east central
Sweden from the 1770s to the mid-19th century and reports the main conclusion as one very
compatible with Winberg’s: increased social differentiation in the peasant class. Söderberg
(1978) counts the share who were poor – defined as those who by the standards of their own
4
Roine and Waldenström (2009) also have wealth tax data for 1908, which enables a comparison of results with
estate data and wealth tax data; they have a thoughtful discussion of this on pp. 157ff.
4
time did not have more than “vad yttersta nödtorften krävde” (to cover the absolutely lowest
necessities) – in southern Sweden in 1821, 1851 and 1871. He finds that the share who was
poor typically was around one fifth of the population. This share was rather stable but
decreased in some southern regions from 1821 to 1871 (p. 23).5 Söderberg (1978: 182)
summarizes Lundsjö’s (1975) study of poverty from 1825 to 1860 as no country-wide trend
but increases in poverty in eastern middle Sweden and a decrease in west Sweden (but from a
higher level). Isacsson (1979) studies one parish in a protoindustrial area of central Sweden
(Dalarna) from 1680 to 1860 and finds increasing social differentiation in the early 19th
century; “the process toward a more homogenous peasant class during the 18th century was
turned into its opposite at the beginning of the 19th century”. This is similar to Martinius’
(1977, 1982) argument that major peasant farmers started to distinguish themselves from
ordinary peasants around 1850, although for Isacsson this process starts already around 1800
while Martinius stresses 1830 as a break point. Olausson (2004) studies social differentiation
in western Wermland from the 17th century to the mid-19th century. He finds obvious
differentiation already in the 17th century, increasing in the 18th century with growth of
proletarian and semi-proletarian groups; he notes that his studied area was particularly
dominated by nobles (p. 151). However in the second half of the 18th century he does find
some specific expansion of peasant farmers which would indicate a more equal distribution;
this is in the 1800 to 1825 period turned to its opposite, with instead a growth of on the one
hand proletarian groups, on the other hand of the large estates.
On the contrary, we have very few studies of urban social differentiation.
Lindberg (2007) studies income distribution in Stockholm from 1730 to 1810, but only has
data for burghers, which of course represented only a small part of the population. Among the
burghers he finds increasing income inequality and makes the more general claim that the 18th
century was marked by a mercantilist “policy of enrichment of the rich and impoverishment
of the poor”. Söderberg (1987) analyzes the distribution of property in Stockholm in 1715,
1799 and 1845. He finds an ownership Gini coefficient of 0.78 in 1715, 0.7 in 1799 and 0.68
in 1845 (p. 68). The share of the nobility or persons of standing falls, and the share of
merchants and craftsmen increases. Bengtsson (2015) studies salary–wage differentials in
Stockholm from 1833 to 1905. He finds that the difference between a white-collar worker or a
professional on the one hand and a blue-collar worker on the other hand increases rapidly in
the mid-19th century, to historically high levels in the 1880s and 1890s. In another study he
also finds that the wages of urban labourers as well as manufacturing and agricultural workers
increase less than GDP per capita does ca. 1830 to 1875, implying a bottom-led increase in
inequality, where proletarians’ living standards do not increase at a pace with overall living
standards (Bengtsson 2014). This would imply growing wealth inequality, given that, as
Williamson (1986) phrases it, wealth distribution is the tail wagged by the income distribution
dog. On the other hand, wages are found to increase slightly faster than GDP/capita in the
1880s and 1890s.
5
Blekinge County was an exception (p. 36).
5
Consequences for the present study: hypotheses and measures
Where does this literature review leave us for the present study? As we see, the Swedish
literature abounds with hypotheses on the movements of wealth inequality – or different parts
of inequality – in the 18th and 19th centuries. The international literature is ironically simpler
when it comes to hypotheses, mainly sticking to the well-known Kuznets curve of associating
modern economic growth with increasing inequality.
Obviously, the latter is something to test for the Swedish case in the 1750 to
1900 period. Swedish industrialization started in early 19th century and had its heyday c. 1870
to 1910. This implies that we might expect increasing wealth inequality especially from 1850
to 1900, but maybe also from 1800 to 1900. Roine and Waldenström (2009) have already
shown, as noted by Piketty (2014), that Swedish inequality was high in the early 20th century,
but before 1906–08 they only have data from 1873–77, and find no trend between the 1870s
and the 1900s. Whether we find a trend from 1850 or even 1800 is an interesting question for
the international debate. This trend can be measured by the Gini coefficient or by the top
percentile and decile shares as Roine and Waldenström (2009) do. Furthermore, it’s not only
the trend, related to the Kuznets Curve, which is interesting, but also the level: will our study,
adding estimates for 1800 and 1850, support Piketty’s (2014) argument that the traditional
view of Sweden as inherently equal is mistaken? To be able to compare with Lindert and
Williamson’s (1980) estimates for the US, Lindert (1986) for Britain, Reis et al (2011) for
Portugal, Fernandez and Santiago-Caballero (2013) for Spain and Cankabal och Filiztekin
(2013) for the Ottoman Empire, we will use Gini coefficients and top shares.
Furthermore, the hypotheses from the Swedish literature are also interesting to
test. These are more fine-grained and require in many cases more fine-grained measures,
distinguishing between rural and urban inequality (and the composition effects of rural–urban
shifts) and different social classes; fortunately this is something that our dataset allows us to
do.
3. Data and methodology
To answer the questions raised above by the many-voiced literature on early modern and
industrial inequality, we present a new dataset. Historical wealth inequality studies typically
build on either tax data or probate inventories. Lindert (1986: 1131) states that the probate
inventory is the best source since it is the only one that encompasses the entire population,
except perhaps paupers. Another advantage compared to tax studies is that wealth and estate
taxes in the early modern period often were temporary in character and so do not facilitate
studies over a longer time span. Hanson Jones’s (1972, 1982) pioneering studies built on
probate inventories. The Swedish studies by Soltow (1985) and Roine and Waldenström
(2009) build on tax data; Soltow focuses on a one-off tax in 1805, and Roine and
Waldenström on a modern tax instituted in the 1870s.
6
Compared with these two previous studies, our use of probate inventories
enables us to take a long run perspective, going further back than the 1870s and covering
several benchmark years, rather than only one year as Soltow (1985). Probate inventories are
a rich source for economic history in Sweden: they were made mandatory in 1734 and after
this year provide a detailed source on individual ownership in all areas and social groups.
They cover ownership of land and real estate as well as household goods, and are so detailed
that they have been used for instance by ethnologists interested in the spread of manufactured
goods as opposed to home made goods. Kuuse (1974) pioneered the use of probate
inventories in economic history research, studying the spread of consumer durables, wealth
formation as well as mechanization in the 19th and 20th centuries. More recently they have
been used for example to analyse formal and informal credit markets (Lindgren 2002).
Probate inventories were the main information used for division of estates among heirs and
were also used to clear debt relations that the deceased had, so there were strong incentives to
create a probate inventory for every person who owned anything and/or had debts.
Probate inventories are a very useful and rich source, but there are also problems
with using them. A possible problem is the underreporting of people with no wealth, as
pointed out by Markkanen (1976). This will probably underestimate the share of people
without wealth and consequently also inequality. We are trying to overcome this problem by
weighing the social groups according to their actual size in each study year. Another problem
is that probate inventories by definition capture people’s wealth at the time of their death.
Death is correlated with age and if different social groups amass wealth at different paces over
the life cycle, then this might bias our estimates. It is reasonable to believe that the wealthy
amassed wealth continuously as they grew older, while the poor might have been as poor in
their prime working age as when they died. If this holds, then it gives an overestimating bias
to our estimates of inequality (Hanson Jones corrected for age and Lindgren 2002 uses her
method on Swedish data, in the next version of the paper we will apply it).
The full data set consists of the probate inventories from 32 rural districts (Sw:
härader/tingslag) and 8 towns in the years 1750, 1800, 1850 and 1900, totally about 1,200
inventories for each of these years. The rural districts were randomly sampled, stratified by
region, and comprise of 17 districts from the south of Sweden (Götaland), 9 from central
Sweden (Svealand) and 6 from the less populous north (Norrland). The towns were randomly
selected from all towns in Sweden by size, i.e. towns with larger populations had a higher
chance of being drawn into the sample than smaller towns.6 The probate inventories for the
nobility were kept in separate registers and we have consciously over-sampled nobles to
provide a detailed picture of the top wealth groups. The information in the probate inventories
that we build on is title/occupation, title/occupation of spouse, real estate (rural and urban),
claims, debts, personal estate, and our calculated net value. Additionally, we are presently
registering age at death, sex and marital status from the church archives, but these variables
6
The towns studied are Askersund, Härnösand, Kristianstad, Norrköping, Stockholm (two separate registers),
Västerås and Ystad.
7
are not used in this preliminary study. We also still have around 350 rural inventories per year
to register before reaching the full sample.
Table 1 shows a reconstruction of the Swedish socio-economic structure and the population
simulated from our probate inventory sample,7 adjusting for the size of the socio-economic
groups, i.e. the sample has been weighted by cloning (“blowing up”) the individuals in the
underrepresented social groups to match their share of the population in respect to the oversampled nobility. From the original 16 group socio-economic classification some of the
groups have been merged to ensure a larger number of observations per group, e.g. the clergy,
the bourgeoisie, teachers, students and other persons of rank have been merged into a middle
class group, and crofters, cottagers, rural servants and workers has been merged into a rural
workers and landless group. In the next step, with the full sample, we will be able to
discriminate between many of these somewhat heterogeneous classes.
Table 1. Socio-economic structure in Sweden 1750–1900 and adjusted data set by year
1750
Percent
Freq.
0.45
216
5.38
2570
46.42
22166
1800
Percent
Freq.
0.37
219
5.66
3359
43.72
25945
1850
Percent
Freq.
0.31
233
5.22
3922
34.37
25808
1900
Percent
Freq.
0.28
236
4.3
3666
28.95
24693
Nobility
Middle class
Peasant farmers
Rural artisans and
1.88
896
1.97
1169
0.79
592
13.33
urban merchants
Rural workers and
30.28
14459
33.75
20029
47.11
35376
22.92
landless
Workers in factories
8.26
3943
9.93
5894
9.32
6999
27.1
and non-bourgeoisie
townspeople
7.32
3496
4.6
2731
2.89
2169
3.12
Soldiers and others
100
47746
100
59346
100
75099
100
Total
Note: We have calculated the socio-economic structure in Sweden for 1750, 1800, and 1850 using
Carlsson (1973), Historisk statistik (1969: 80–81, tables 21 and 22), Agardh (1857: 155), and Wohlin
(1909: 49, table L, 180, table A). For 1900, we have used the non-aggregated, “raw”, numbers in the
Swedish Official Statistics (BiSOS, 1907/A: table 15). Due to changes in classification between the
different sources, the categories are not always coherent over time. The artisan and merchant group
has for example taken over a huge part of the middle class in 1900. These problems will be further
elaborated in coming versions of the paper.
The variable of interest in the paper is the distribution of the net value. We will measure this
with top shares (top 1%, top 10%) and Gini coefficients. From the titles/occupations of the
deceased and of the spouses, their social status coding permit analyses by social group. We
have also coded the deceased as rural or urban and can thus distinguish between these two
types.
7
The original sample by socio-economic group can be found in the Appendix.
8
11370
19553
23114
2660
85292
4. Results
Overall inequality
Land ownership was the major source of wealth in preindustrial Sweden, and since 0.45 per
cent of the population, the nobility, owned about one third of the agricultural land in 1750, it
is not surprising if we start on a rather high level of inequality. As noted in the literature
review, given the prevalence of Kuznets Curves in the literature, we would expect an increase
in wealth inequality during the 19th century. Piketty (2014) claims that inequality was as high
in Sweden as in more famously unequal countries in 1900, and the only statements in the
literature where we would not expect rising inequality is Soltow (1989) who claims that
distribution became continuously more equal from 1800 to 1920, and Roine and Waldenström
(2009) who find no trend from the 1870s to the 1900s. As Table 1 shows, there was indeed an
increasing trend in inequality, as measured by the top decile share of wealth, in the 19th
century, especially from 1850 to 1900. The top decile held about three quarters of Swedish
wealth in 1750, the share increased slowly to 1850 and then increased markedly to 1900
during the industrialisation period. This increase is probably related to urbanization and
industrialization: urban inequality was higher than rural (see below), and industrialization
created new fortunes quite concentrated in the population.
Table 2. Top wealth shares, Sweden, 1750–1900
Top 1%
Top 10%
1750
51%
74%
1800
43%
75%
1850
44%
77%
1900
51%
88%
The top percentile’s share also increased from 1850 to 1900, from 43 to 51 per cent, which is
consistent with the expansion of free market and capitalism in the period. This contrast with
Roine and Waldenström’s (2009) finding of constant inequality from the 1870s to the late
1890s: the question is whether the difference is due to the longer time period here or the
difference in data (probate inventories versus tax data). The levels are rather similar:
according to Roine and Waldenström the top percentile held about 53–60 per cent of total
wealth in the 1870s, 1890s and 1900s, and according to our finding s they held 43 per cent in
1850 and 51 per cent in 1900. The estimate for the top decile is 85–90 per cent in Roine and
Waldenström, while ours end up at 77 per cent in 1850 and 88 per cent in 1900. In an
international comparison, our top percentile share is a bit lower than Lindert’s (1986) for
Britain in the 19th century, which varies from 55 to 61 per cent; his top decile has 85–90 per
cent. It then seems reasonable to concede the point to Piketty (2014): Sweden in 1900 was not
a very equal society, but rather very comparable to other capitalist countries. The sources of
Swedish equality are modern. However, maybe in 1750 to 1850 wealth distribution, at least as
measured by the top decile share, was more equal in Sweden than in Britain. This could be
related to the lower levels of economic development in Sweden (cf. Ohlsson et al 2014).
9
What about the equal Swedish peasants? In the Swedish literature, several
studies of the rural population in this period (Isacsson 1979, Olausson 2004) stress a
homogenization especially between 1750 and 1800, as contrasted to increasing disparities in
the 1800–1850 period. Our top share data do not support this interpretation: the top
percentile’s share does decrease from 1750 to 1800, but (a) this estimate is based on a very
low number of observations so is volatile to its nature, and (b) the top decile share does not
move, which means that the decrease in the relative ownership of the top percentile was
compensated by increased holdings of the percentiles 90 to 98. However, top shares of course
only measure the (relative) position of the elite. Possibly, there could have been an
equalization on the more popular level in the second half of the 18th century? Table 3 shows
the Gini coefficient which is a more encompassing measure of inequality.
Table 3. Wealth inequality in Sweden, 1750–1900 (Gini coefficients)
1750
0.82
1800
0.84
1850
0.86
1900
0.89
Figure 1. Lorenz curves of wealth distribution, 1750–1900
10
This does not support the idea of increasing equality between 1750 and 1800: instead the Gini
coefficient increases by two points, from 0.82 to 0.84. The shape of the Lorenz curves in
Figure 1 confirms that the increasing inequality in the period 1750–1850 was not due to
increasing wealth among the richest. This is contrasted by 1850–1900, when the top 15–20%
seems to fuel the patterns of increasing inequality. Of course this does not prove that there
was no equalization within the landed peasant class, but if there was one, on the aggregate it
was counteracted by increasing inequality elsewhere. One probable explanation is that the
proletarianization process observed in this period (Winberg 1975) increased inequality by
increasing the numbers and share of people who owned little or nothing at all. Given that our
dataset allows us to calculate inequality separately for social groups, we have calculated the
wealth Gini index for peasant-farmers (social group 7) and it indeed is much more equal in
1750, 0.58, than in 1900, 0.78. In 1800 and 1850 it was 0.70.
Rural and urban
As noted, Soltow’s (1989) finding of continuously growing equality in the 19th century has
been contradicted by our data. Could this be due to the fact that Soltow only has rural data:
did inequality in the rural setting actually decrease? This is in line with what was claimed by
Lindert (1986). Furthermore, can we see equalization in the second half of the 18th century as
we would expect from Isacsson (1979) and Olausson (2004)? Table 4 shows urban and rural
inequality separately.
Table 4. Urban and rural wealth inequality in Sweden 1750–1900, Gini coefficients
Urban
Rural
1750
0.91
0.73
1800
0.91
0.78
1850
0.93
0.79
1900
0.92
0.82
Note: Parts of the landholding nobility resided in the towns, so their rural land possessions are (in this
preliminary estimation) included in the urban estimate.
Firstly, table 4 clearly shows that the typical results from previous studies hold for Sweden
too: urban wealth inequality is higher than rural. On the direction of urban inequality, we have
in the Swedish literature opposite hypotheses from Lindberg’s (2007) study of burgher
incomes and Söderberg’s (1987) analysis of real estate ownership: Lindberg claims that urban
inequality increases in the 18th century while Söderberg claims that it decreases. According to
our data actually there is no trend between 1750 and 1800. The level is constant at 0.91; what
is more striking is the very high level.
On rural inequality, the expectation on the late 18th century is contradicted:
inequality actually increases by a non-trivial amount, the Gini coefficient growing from 0.73
to 0.78. As noted above, there might have been equalization within the much-researched
peasant class during the period, but the overall picture is still polarization, probably mostly
driven by certain groups of tenants buying their farms from the state, increasing their real
property wealth, while others, tenants under the nobility, was prohibited to do the same. From
11
1800 to 1900 rural wealth distribution becomes a bit more unequal still, the Gini increasing
from 0.78 to 0.82.
Comparing the urban and rural, the most striking fact is that urban inequality is
much higher. Urbanization, which is constant around 10 per cent of the population between
1750 and 1850 but then doubling to 21 per cent in 1900, would then be associated with
growing inequality. The process is the opposite of the one found in Britain by Lindert (1986):
he claims that ownership of land was extraordinarily unequal and that the increasing
importance of other types of capital in the 18th and 19th centuries then had an equalizing effect
on wealth distribution. In Sweden, maybe because of the prevalence of independent
smallholding farmers, instead rural wealth distribution at the beginning of the period is the
most equal distribution we find.
Social groups
As discussed above, Lindert (1986) sees a major transformation in wealth ownership over the
1670 to 1875 period in Britain, above all a transformation from domination by the landed
elites to non-land wealth becoming more important. Steckel and Moerhling (2001) similarly
provide a decomposition of wealth inequality and its changes in industrializing New England
from 1820 to 1900. How did Swedish wealth composition change over the 1750 to 1900
period and how did this affect its distribution?
Table 5. Wealth by social group, 1750–1900 (nominal values, kronor)
Social status
Nobility
Middle class
Peasant farmers
Rural artisans and
urban merchants
Rural workers and
landless
Workers in
factories and nonbourgeoisie
townspeople
Soldiers and others
Total sample
1750
Average Share
wealth
of total
wealth
7 965
21%
1800
Average Share
wealth
of total
wealth
12 877
11%
1850
Average Share
wealth
of total
wealth
35 564
11%
1900
Average Share
wealth
of total
wealth
108 160
5%
574
20%
1 060
15%
4 039
26%
24 202
18%
134
37%
487
49%
1 175
39%
6 191
30%
1 081
13%
2 803
13%
13 250
11%
14 728
33%
23
3%
57
4%
185
6%
530
2%
56
3%
89
2%
746
7%
2 246
10%
62
3%
508
5%
111
0%
2 555
1%
1 413
100%
2 554
100%
7 880
100%
22 658
100%
We see clearly in table 5 how the importance of the nobility in the economy is diminished
during the period. In 1750, the nobility, less than half per cent of the population, holds 21 per
cent of total wealth; in 1800 this has decreased to 11 per cent, in 1850 still 11 per cent and in
1900 to a mere 5 per cent. The peasant farmers also see their share decreasing in the long run,
12
from 37 per cent in 1750 to 33 per cent in 1900, but with an all-time high in 1800 at 49 per
cent. The middle class and bourgeoisie group increase its share from 20 per cent in 1750 to 26
per cent in 1850. The decrease in 1900 is associated with a different socio-economic
classification, having a larger part of the middle class in the merchant group. If we merge the
middle class and artisan/merchant groups, their percentage of total wealth increased from 37
to 51 between 1850 and 1900. Rural and urban workers own very little, but with the
industrialization the share of wealth kept by the urban workers increased substantially.
5. Conclusions
This paper has presented the first long run estimates of wealth inequality in Sweden before the
late 19th century using a newly collected stratified random sample of over 3,000 probate
inventories. The results show a country with high and growing inequality from 1750 to 1900,
in contrast to the picture sometimes spread both in the international and domestic literature of
a relatively equal, homogenous society of peasant-proprietors. This image is partial and as an
analysis of society as a whole probably misleading, projecting well-known equality in the 20th
century back to where it cannot be found in the data.
In 1750, Sweden was a rural country with less than ten per cent living in urban
settings. Most people were engaged in agriculture and thereby growth and distribution within
this sector was the main determinant of equality/inequality. Since the nobility, constituting
less than half a per cent of the population, owned and controlled a third of all land inequality
was high. Over the next fifty years, inequality increased somewhat, particularly in the
countryside. One factor contributing to this was the opening for tenants on Crown land to buy
their farms. Through a rather small sum, equal to six years rent, they became owners of their
farms and their property value therefore increased from zero to constituting the main part of
their wealth. However, not all tenants invested in this and some tenants, the ones under the
nobility, were not allowed to buy their farms. Thus, an increase in the inequality within the
peasant-farmer class, the largest socio-economic group by that time in Sweden, took place.
This change in property rights increased economic incentives and possibilities for
accumulation and was one part of the emerging agricultural revolution which made inequality
rise despite a stagnant GDP per capita over the period.
In 1800, the agricultural revolution took up speed, starting in the south of the
country with enclosures, investments in land conversion, emerging markets in land, labour
and capital, and spread across the country over the coming 50 years. The investments in
agriculture required more labour and changes commencing in the eighteenth century was
increasing in force, such as the rural landless marrying and forming families without having
access to land. There was thus a social differentiation in the countryside and while the group
of landless increased, the farmers became richer due to investments, fixed taxes, and rising
demand for food. Although both groups belonged to the lower part of the wealth distribution
and thereby made little impact on top-wealth and overall inequality, farmers went from less
than six times as wealthy as their workers to more than eight times as wealthy. Also in the
13
towns, inequality rose, partly due to merchants becoming a very wealthy group,
outperforming other townspeople. Overall, inequality rose but rather slowly during this period
as did GDP per capita which grew by around 0.3 per cent per annum (Schön and Krantz,
2012).
During the period 1850 to 1900 Sweden experienced the industrial revolution
and towns grew both absolutely and relative the countryside. The growth of the towns in
relation to the countryside had a compositional effect on total inequality, since towns were
more unequal than the rural settings during this period, but there was also a quite strong
wealth accumulation among the top 15–20 per cent of the population. This was above all the
rise of the new industrialisers and a continued wealth expansion among merchants. Also GDP
per capita rose fast, by 1.4 per cent per year, so inequality and growth went hand in hand
during the industrial revolution. In 1900, our estimates show a very unequal Swedish society
with the top 10% owning 88 per cent of the total wealth and the top 1% owning 51 per cent,
which is very much in line with the estimations by Roine and Waldenström for 1907 (cf
Piketty 2014: 345, figure 10:4). Although we must bear in mind that our sample is not yet
complete, making room for further precision in the estimation in the coming study, the picture
of Sweden as highly unequal already at the beginning of the agricultural revolution, and this
inequality rising fast over the subsequent industrial revolution, seems quite robust.
14
Appendix
Table A1. Number of probate inventories in the sample by socio-economic group
Nobility
Middle class
Peasant farmers
Rural artisans and urban
merchants
Rural workers and
landless
Workers in factories and
non-bourgeoisie
townspeople
Soldiers and others
Total
1750
216
161
215
42
1800
219
121
236
46
1850
233
106
199
39
1900
236
73
178
87
18
84
109
107
41
58
78
83
24
717
28
792
22
786
28
792
Note: Socio-economic classification from Table 1.
15
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